Roots

 No vacation is complete for me without a book or two to fill in

empty spaces of time.  Here I read as I wait for my husband to finish up a round of golf.

The scenery is spectacular.  The car radio is tuned to classical music.

The book is Speak What We Feel Not What We Ought to Say:  Four Who Wrote in Blood 

by Frederick Buechner.  The four are Chesterton, Hopkins, Shakespeare and Twain.

 From a sonnet of Gerard Manley Hopkins....

 ...Mine, O thou lord of life,

send my roots rain.

In the margin of my book, I pen it.  "Amen!"

In addition to the amazing field of phlox that met our view in Island Park last evening,
I was drawn to the various root formations...
"Roots" appears to have emerged as the word  summarizing

this year's vacation.  (Last year it was "fire".)

 Let your roots grow down into him and draw up nourishment from him, so you will grow in faith, strong and vigorous in the truth you were taught. Let your lives overflow with thanksgiving for all he has done. (Colossians 2:7)

I pray that out of his glorious riches he may strengthen you with power through his Spirit

in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith.  And I pray that you, being rooted and established  in love may have power, together with all the Lord's holy people, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses

knowledge--that you may be filled to the full measure of all the fullness of God.  (Ephesians 3: 16-19)